Pope Francis visits Mongolia amid strained relations between Catholics, China

Pope Francis visits Mongolia amid strained relations between Catholics, China
by A.L. Lee
Washington DC (UPI) Sep 1, 2023

Pope Francis on Friday became the first pontiff to visit Mongolia as part of a three-day trip aimed at engaging with Catholics in the reclusive, former communist nation amid increasing tensions with Beijing.

After a nine-and-a-half hour flight from Rome, the 86-year-old Francis landed in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar about 10 a.m. local time, and was greeted on the tarmac of Chinggis Khaan airport by foreign minister Battsetseg Batmunkh.

The Mongolian State Honour Guard saluted the pope in a formal but brief welcoming ceremony in which a Mongolian woman in cultural garb offered Francis a cup of yogurt as part of an ancient tradition.

Francis planned to relax for the rest of the day before meeting with a host of government leaders on Saturday, followed by a speech to Mongolian priests and missionaries.

He was also scheduled to meet with Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, the head of the Mongolian Catholic Church, who Francis appointed during the Consistory in August 2022.

The pope's 43rd international trip comes as the Chinese Communist Party banned Chinese bishops and lay Catholics from traveling to Mongolia while the pope was in town.

Beijing, however, granted special permission for the pope's plane to fly over Chinese airspace en route to Mongolia after Francis sent an in-flight blessing to President Xi Jinping offering his prayers "for the well-being of the nation."

During the flight, Francis also sent telegrams to the leaders of Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Türkiye, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan

Mongolia, which is sandwiched between Russia and China, is a multiparty democracy with one of the world's smallest Catholic populations.

The pope's trip notably lacked the typical fanfare of a papal visit -- with Francis waving to crowds from a glass-enclosed vehicle -- as only about 1,500 Catholics live among Mongolia's 3.4 million citizens.

Still, the pope's visit was being hailed as "the event of the century" among the nation's small number of Catholic faithful.

The country also shares a 3,000-mile border with China, but the two nations have never established formal relations aside from a 2018 agreement that sought to rein in the number of Catholic bishops in Mongolia, which has strained relations between Beijing and the Vatican in recent months due to several breaches of the accord.

Before takeoff on Thursday night, Francis called Mongolia a "land of silence," saying the country was "a land so vast, so big. It will help us understand what it means: not intellectually but with the senses."

Francis did not directly address the difficulties with China, but did say that it "sometimes it takes a sense of humor" to navigate the challenges of world diplomacy.

Francis also brushed aside recent criticism by "reactionary" American Catholics over proposed reforms to welcome the LGBTQ community and other minorities into the church.

During the country's 1990 revolution, which ended 70 years of communist rule under the Soviet Union, Mongolia adopted a new Constitution that guaranteed religious freedom and brought Catholic missionaries back from exile.